July 19, 2005
The Elf Next Door
When laying down roads and putting up buildings, residents of most North American and European countries worry about zoning codes. Icelanders worry about elves living in rocks.Posted by Ithildin at July 19, 2005 11:13 AM | PROCURE FINE OLD WORLD ABSINTHE"If there was a large stone in the garden, and somebody said to an Icelander, 'That's an elf stone,' would they blow it up? They wouldn't," Terry Gunnell, head of the folklore department at the University of Iceland, told the New York Times.
In the town of Kopavogur, a section of Elf Hill Road had to be cut back from two lanes to one in the 1970s when, during efforts to remove a large rock thought to house elves, construction equipment kept breaking down.
"A lot of people believe they still live there," said neighbor Gurdrun Bjarnadottir, "but I think they've moved."
In Iceland, settled by Scandinavian Vikings and their Irish slaves in the 10th century, democracy preceded Christianity. Although the population of 300,000 is modern and Internet-savvy, old traditions die hard and opinion polls show that a majority believe in elves.
"My next-door neighbor is an elf woman," explained retired museum director Hildur Hakonardottir. "She lives in a cliff in a rock in my garden."
In Kopavogur in 1996, someone tried to flatten a hill to build a cemetery, but bulldozers malfunctioned and television cameras trained on the site failed to work.
"We're going to see whether we can't reach an understanding with the elves," the construction project supervisor told a local newspaper at the time. "Elf communicators" were brought in and after some time work successfully resumed.
Elly Erlingsdottir, who heads the town of Hafnarfjordur's planning committee, said a committee member recently told a resident who wanted to build a garage that he hoped it was "OK with the elves."
Erlingsdottir also told the Times that some elves had borrowed her kitchen scissors, returning them after a week to a place she'd searched many times.
"My philosophy is, you don't have to see everything you believe in," she explained, "because many of your greatest experiences happen with closed eyes."
